Understanding Coordination Support of Enterprise Architecture Management – Empirical Analysis and Implications for Practice

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is a means to guide the consistent evolution of business and IT artifacts from an enterprise-wide perspective. This paper aims at understanding the means by which EAM supports this coordination task. Informed by theory of coordination and based on empirical data (n=95) we group participating enterprises in different clusters: (1) non-coordinators, (2) dominators and (3) negotiators. We find that a similar awareness of opportunities exists in all three clusters, yet there are gaps in the realization of EAM coordination support: non-coordinators show the lowest realization, negotiators the highest. Based on this clustering and two follow-up focus groups, we provide implications about the occurrence of the clusters in enterprises and on further EAM development options

Characterization of an automated spinning-band column as a module for laboratory distillation

Modularization is a promising technology to respond to short product life cycles. Not only in production but also in the laboratory, the concept of modularization can help to quickly explore new products or processes. A modular continuously operated spinning-band distillation column for small product amounts is presented and characterized regarding operating window and separation efficiency. The column can be used either for first product amounts within a small-scale production or as feasibility studies for distillation in a scale-up context with small amounts of resources, energy, and time. By introducing the modular automation concept and a certain degree of automation structures, this column can be operated almost fully automatically and integrated quickly to higher automation structures such as a process orchestration layer

Single-molecule conductance studies on quasi- and metallaaromatic dibenzoylmethane coordination compounds and their aromatic analogs

The ability to predict the conductive behaviour of molecules, connected to macroscopic electrodes, represents a crucial prerequisite for the design of nanoscale electronic devices. In this work, we investigate whether the notion of a negative relation between conductance and aromaticity (the so-called NRCA rule) also pertains to quasi-aromatic and metallaaromatic chelates derived from dibenzoylmethane (DBM) and Lewis acids (LAs) that either do or do not contribute two extra dπ electrons to the central resonance-stabilised β-ketoenolate binding pocket. We therefore synthesised a family of methylthio-functionalised DBM coordination compounds and subjected them, along with their truly aromatic terphenyl and 4,6-diphenylpyrimidine congeners, to scanning tunneling microscope break-junction (STM-BJ) experiments on gold nanoelectrodes. All molecules share the common motif of three π-conjugated, six-membered, planar rings with a meta-configuration at the central ring. According to our results, their molecular conductances fall within a factor of ca. 9 in an ordering aromatic < metallaaromatic < quasi-aromatic. The experimental trends are rationalised by quantum transport calculations based on density functional theory (DFT)